


Messing About In Boats

by wendymr



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M, commentfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymr/pseuds/wendymr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“What <b>are</b> you doing with that rope?” Robbie asks, still staring. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Messing About In Boats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamardeuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/gifts).



> Written for Lamardeuse's prompt from Lost_Spook's [Obscure and British Comment Fest](http://lost-spook.livejournal.com/325603.html): _Lewis/Hathaway, rope._

_“There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”  
\- The Wind in the Willows, _ by Kenneth Grahame.

 

“What’s this doing here?” James lifts the offending item from the bottom of the dinghy with a single finger, one eyebrow raised in sceptical enquiry.

“You should know! You’re the rower, not me. What’d you moor the... whatever the boat’s called... with?”

“Boat. And we used a mooring rope. Which this is not, by the way.”

Robbie shrugs, then awkwardly pulls the oars through the water again; if James is making him row, he’ll make the bloke regret it. “Was what they had in Homebase last Saturday.”

“Hmm.” James winds the rope slowly around the span of his hand, and Robbie watches, finding himself fascinated without understanding why. “Oi! Careful!” James exclaims, abruptly leaning forward, grabbing one oar and quickly altering the boat’s course. Oops. They were about to collide with a bigger boat.

“Bugger this.” Robbie takes the oars back and makes for the bank; there’s a little inlet where they can pull the dinghy up and just sit for a bit. Heavy work, this rowing lark. And James is bloody well rowing back. He’s the one who insisted that Robbie’s joke about the dinghy and an allotment had to happen, so he can do some work for a change.

James leans back, still winding the rope. “Had enough already, Robbie? Don’t tell me retirement’s making you soft?”

“You’re joking, aren’t you? Where were you the other day when I had to turn over the soil in the allotment?”

James runs his palm slowly over the rope that’s now all around his hand and wrist. “At a job interview, in case you’ve forgotten. For a job that’s going to pay my share of the rent on that flat you suggested we share.”

That’s true. And James will get the job; Robbie has no doubt about that. Nor about moving in with his former sergeant. Once he and Laura realised they weren’t suited after all, he just hadn’t fancied going back to being on his own, and over a pint or four one evening somehow it had occurred to him that over the best part of the last decade he’d spent most of his waking hours with James and they’d managed not to kill each other. He already missed the bloke and looked forward to their allotment time and meetings at the pub. Moving in together just made sense.

“What _are_ you doing with that rope?” Robbie asks, still staring. 

James strokes his hand over it again. “Just thinking about what possible uses rope could be put to on a dinghy. This isn’t mooring rope, by the way. And this dinghy already has mooring rope.” He nods towards the front end of the boat – prow, he’d told Robbie it’s called.

James is now unwinding one end of the rope, twisting it around his other hand and leaving a couple of feet of rope stretched between his hands. He’s staring down at his hands, a faint smile on his face and something in his expression that Robbie’s never seen before. Intensity, yes, but something else.

“James?” Damn it, his voice just turned into a squeak.

James looks up and across at Robbie, his movements slow and deliberate, and now there’s a wicked look in his eyes. “Yes?”

“What-?”

“How would you react, I wonder,” James says softly, “if someone were to use this rope to tie you down and have their wicked way with you?”

Someone? Such as who? He draws in a shuddering breath. What the bloody hell’s happening here? “We’re in public,” he points out. “I’m an ex-copper. Can’t be doing stuff like that.”

James nods towards the head-high reeds and grasses that surround them. “We’re not exactly visible. And I didn’t suggest doing anything illegal.” 

“Someone,” Robbie repeats, and he finds he can’t tear his gaze away from James. James, his ex-bagman. James, his best mate and soon-to-be flatmate. James, who’s looking at him as if he wants to eat him up, and Robbie’s body is telling him that it quite likes the sound of that, thank you very much. 

Eh? Is _that_ why he wasn’t interested enough in Laura?

“Someone,” James confirms, and abruptly he moves forward. The boat rocks. James wraps the rope around Robbie’s wrists and ties it – loosely enough that Robbie could easily free himself if he wants to.

He doesn’t.

James bends closer, closer, until his upper body is almost touching Robbie’s. For all his take-charge dominance of a moment ago, though, his eyes are asking permission. He won’t do anything that Robbie doesn’t want.

And it’s that knowledge that makes Robbie lean up and press his lips to James’s. 

The kiss is sweet, lingering, and full of promise, and as James pulls back his smile promises much more where that came from – and probably less sweet than downright dirty, Robbie suspects. His body hardens again at the thought. 

Fine time of life to find out that he’s bi, he thinks, then decides it doesn’t matter.

“Home, James?” he suggests. “Got beer in the fridge, an’ you never did get to try out my orthopaedic mattress.”

James’s smile widens again, sheer happiness and anticipation on his face – and his nose is already pinkened by the sun, and Robbie will enjoy mocking him about that later. “Absolutely.”

“Get your mitts on those oars, then,” Robbie orders him. “I’m a bit tied up.”


End file.
